I Can't Help Falling in Love with You
by BellaDarling
Summary: A fight breaks out in the McDonald-Venturi household the night before the teenagers go their separate ways. Years later, they're thrust together again, and things that should have stayed hidden come into the light.
1. Prologue: Goodbyes, or There Lack Of

**I Can't Help Falling in Love with You **

**Fandom: **Life with Derek

**Author: **BellaDarling

**Summary: **A fight breaks out in the McDonald-Venturi household the night before the teenagers go their separate ways. Years later, they're thrust together again, and things that should have stayed hidden come into the light.

Derek ran both of his hands through his hair, resting his elbows on his knees and rubbing his temples with his calloused fingertips. He actually felt… bad.

He'd really fucked it up this time. Seizing the notebook filled with incomplete school work from his nightstand, he threw it with all his strength across the room. She'd be gone in the morning, off to her new college. He'd decided not to go, and to take a hockey scholarship that had been offered to him. Big leagues, could get him somewhere.

He was scared and hurt and said things he hadn't meant, and it had come back to bite him yet again.

_I fucking hate you, Casey McDonald._

The ceiling in her room had been her focal point for a number of years. Anytime something in her life went wrong, she found herself staring into it, like it held all the answers. Tonight, just like every other in the past three years, it told her nothing.

Her chest from the crushing weight of being let down, her nose bright red and running, both perfect companions to her pink rimmed and bloodshot eyes.

Her right arm bent at the elbow, hand draped across her forehead and her fingers rubbing the left side of her head to try and alleviate some of the tension there. Nothing seemed to work.

She was starting Queens tomorrow. Alone. No irritating stepbrother to make it any easier (or harder, for that matter.)

The words from the past hour ran through her mind and tears slipped out of her clenched eyes again.

_I hate you, Derek Venturi._

The next morning, they said nothing to one another.

They skirted around and did well in avoiding each other, taking turns instead of their usual winner takes all morning routine.

They hugged their younger step- and full siblings and their opposite 'parents', George taking his son, Nora her daughter, to start their new lives.

Not so much as a glance between them.

Derek spent the car ride looking out the window, glaring. Regretful.

Casey stared at the ceiling of her mother's car, still looking for answers that didn't reveal themselves.

_I hate you._


	2. Chapter 2

Derek Venturi was famous.

Completely famous.

So famous that he could smell like a dying goat (which he often did, due to his profession) and still get any girl he wanted.

He loved every single fucking second of it. And for an hour, he loved the girl who had left his hotel room just a moment before.

He smirked to himself and wiped the fire engine red lipstick off his bare chest. _Fond memories, _he thought, highly amused at his own joke. He left his shit off but put his jeans back on, low riding and exposing his boxers like a typical twenty year old who thought he was the shit.

_No thinking involved. I __**am**__ the shit._

"Alcohoooool," he sang to himself, opening the minibar and grabbing two three-shot bottles from within. Sitting down on his bed, he picked up his phone.

**Five Missed Calls**

"Girl, Girl, Girl… Edwin, _Edwin?"_

He flopped backwards, staring at the LCD screen in front of him.

What the hell could Ed possibly want?

He almost dropped his phone out of shock when it started vibrating, **Edwin Calling** written across the screen.

"Hello?" he said, more than a bit confused.

"Smerek?" Okay, there was no way that was Edwin.

"_Marti_?"

"Smerek!" the girl yelled into the other line. He ripped the phone away from his ear quickly.

"It's two in the morning, Marti! What are you calling me for?"

She sighed like it was common knowledge what she'd be calling for.

"I want you to come home. So does Dad. And Nora. And Lizzie. I think Edwin does too, but he's Edwin and would never admit it and-"

"Okay, Marti, okay." How did you even explain this to your younger sister? "Marti, I'm not coming home just yet. I've got things and-"

"It's the off season, Smerek! You don't start training for another month. Please just come home, just for a weekend."

He sighed heavily, trying to think of a way to tell her no.

"Please please please please pleaaaaaase!" she begged.

He groaned. "Fine, Smarti. I'll be home-"

"Next weekend. Please."

"Alright, fine."

"Bye Smerek!"

"Gooodbye."

Of course they used the kid on him.

_Dammit, Marti._

In a bedroom, two teenagers sat with their sister beside them.

"Good job, Marti!" they said to her, high fiving each other excitedly.

"Stage one complete!"


	3. Chapter 3

_**Author's Note: Sorry for taking so long with updates, guys! I've been trying with great difficulty to get it where I want it to go. Thanks for sticking around.**_

_**All my love, Paige.**_

**Flashback**

"_Oh my God, will you at least put a shirt on?" she laughs, watching as he walks into her room. He smiles warmly at her, just the tiniest hint of sarcasm showing through._

"_We both know you like me better shirtless."_

_Her smile is wide, eyes bright as she stares up at him. "Yes, but you can't just walk in here half naked. People will talk."_

"_As if they don't already!" He sits on her bed, flipping through one of the numerous Shakespeare scripts scattered across the comforter._

"_You have to help me decide which one I want to audition for." _

_He groans. "Whichever one I can avoid reading now, and sit in the front row cheering for you later." _

_She throws one of the three others on her desk at him. "I'm thinking __Twelfth Night__."_

_He nods. _

"_Should we tell them?" he asks suddenly._

_She shrugs. "If we must. I feel like it would be better for us to wait."_

_He smiles and agrees with her. _

"_I love you," he says, just so she knows. He stretches out across her just-barely-too-short-for-him bed glances back at her. "Say it back!"_

_If someone had told her a year ago that he'd be in her room, begging her to say something as serious as 'I love you too' she'd have called them crazy._

"_I'm not saying anything," she smiled teasingly. _

"_Say it or I'm putting peanut butter on everything you care about."_

"_Now __**that**__ could be fun," she jokes, eyeing him._

"_Just say it back. Please?"_

_And he looks so completely serious that it unnerves her a bit. _

"_Why do you want to know so badly?"_

"_Because I've admitted it!"_

"_I've said it before too," she laughs, at this point, just teasing him out of revenge._

_He sits up and looks her over, grabbing a handful of her scripts. "I'll burn them," he offers, smiling._

"_No! I need those," she hollers, and he smiles again._

"_Say it."_

"_I love you, you arrogant fool."_

_He stands and pulls her to him in the center of the room, hands folding themselves around her waist. _

"_I love you, you traitorous witch." He kisses her forehead. "Making me beg. Who do you think you are?"_

"'_Traitorous? Big words for so early in the morning."_

"_I prefer to think of it as late at night, if you don't mind."_

_They kiss, and it's nothing short of wonderful. There are promises and love and comfort in it, and they know nothing would compare to it._

"_Go to bed," she says, kissing him once more and sending him off._

"_Night, babe," he says, smiling genuinely. _

"_Night, Derek."_


	4. Chapter 4

**Sorry for the delay, guys! I'm currently emotionally distraught over last night's AHS. I won't ruin it for anyone, but let's just leave it at, I'm glad my crush is based on Evan Peters and not Tate Langdon.**

"Hi, Casey," Lizzie said, sitting down in Derek's chair. For some reason, Casey avoided it like the plague whenever she came home, choosing the floor over it whenever every other seat was taken.

Now, however, she was stretched across the couch, book in her face, how she spent most of the previous two summer vacations from Queens.

"Hi, Liz," Casey responded, not looking up from her book.

"Are you staying the _whole_ summer again?" she asked slowly, trying to be as non-obvious as possible.

"Yup," her sister replied, uninterested in whatever Lizzie had to say.

"Oh." This was far easier than she thought it was going to be. "Good."

"Mhm."

"Okay. Well. I'll leave you alone now, then."

Lizzie stood up and walked calmly out of the room before bolting upstairs to Marti and Ed.

"She's staying."

"We heard," Edwin said. "She didn't even question why you were asking. How odd."

Marti spoke up next, "Why are we even doing this?"

"Because she and Derek haven't spoken since they left for college, after acting _very differently _for the few months before they left. We want to know why."

"So you're throwing them in a room together?"

At her older siblings' nods, she said, "Good enough for me," and went to play with her dolls.

_June Eighteenth holds no relevance to me whatsoever, _Casey repeated to herself over and over, practically ripping her book in half she was gripping it so hard. Nothing happened on this day. Nothing.

She wanted quite desperately to punch something.

**Two Weeks Later**

Derek pulled up to his high school home at eight thirty and sighed.

He hadn't been home in almost two years. He came home once, freshman year, for Christmas. Casey hadn't been able to come home due to a show. Perfect, the way things work out sometimes.

After ten minutes of silent debating on turning around, he parked the car and stepped out, slinging his bag over his shoulder and stepping up to the front door.

"Dad?" he said, walking in. "Nora?"

The latter came running from the kitchen to hug him tightly, squealing, "Dereeeeeek!" at a decibel he swore only dogs could fully appreciate.

"Hi, Nora!" he said, awkwardly trying to sound excited to be there.

"Hi, honey! Your father just took Lizzie and Ed to the store for something or other. Marti's upstairs, just dying to see you. Go find her and I'll make you something to eat. She's in Casey's old room." _Don't even want to think about that room._

"Thanks, Nora," he said, genuinely pleased at her hospitality.

What he really needed was to pee. He made his way to the bathroom quickly. Not bothering with the door, he stepped to the toilet. After flushing and turning around, he was face to face with the last person he expected to see -Casey, in a sports bra, and some weird stretchy pants, sweating. He assumed she was just home from yoga or something like that.

They stared each other down before he said, quietly, "Do you always barge in when someone's taking a piss?"

Her mouth opened and closed a few times, searching for words that didn't come to her. Finally, she turned and bolted from the room, downstairs.

He sat back on the counter and sighed loudly. That was not how he had pictured that going. In his imagination, there were apologies and making out against walls.

Maybe he was a little too wishful of a thinker.


End file.
